A. Military Supremacy and the Reorganization of Europe
-Bonaparte’s strategy in 1800 called for a repeat of the 1797 campaign
-He would strike through Italy while the Army of the Rhine pushed eastward against Vienna
-Austria sued for peace
-The Treaty of Luneville (Feb. 1801) essentially restored France to the position it had held after Bonaparte’s triumphs in Italy in 1797
-The Treaty of Amiens (March 1802) ended hostilities and reshuffled territorial holdings outside Europe, such as the Cape Colony in South Africa, which passed from the Dutch to the British
-Did not settle for future of French influence in Europe or of commercial relations between the two great powers
-Treaty of Amiens failed to keep the peace because neither side was ready to abandon its century-long struggle for predominance
1. The Third Coalition
-The anti-France coalition’s objectives included the restoration of the Netherlands and Italy to “independence”, the limitation of French influence elsewhere, and if possible, a reduction of France to its pre-Revolutionary borders
-At the Battle of Trafalgar (Oct 1805), Admiral Nelson’s fleet crushed the combined naval forces of France and its ally Spain
-Occupying Vienna he proceeded against the coalition’s main army in December
-At the Battle of Austerlitz, he drew his numerically superior opponents into an exposed position and crushed the center of their lines
-Forced Habsburgs to the peace table
-Treaty of Pressburg (Dec. 1805), extremely harsh and humiliating for Austria, imposed a large indemnity and required Habsburgs to cede their Venetian provinces
2. France and Germany
-Napoleon reorganized Germany into the Confederation of the Rhine
-Prussia remained neutral for a while
-Prussia vs. France in the battle of Jena (oct 1806)
-Collapse of Prussian military power
-End of Holy Roman Empire in 1806, Napoleon liquidated numerous small German states and merged them into two new ones: the Kingdom of Westphalia, with his brother Jerome on the throne, and the Grand Duchy of Berg, to be ruled by his brother-in-law Joachim Murat
-“Restoration of Poland” had propaganda value
-Napoleon could now enlist a Polish army and use Polish territory as a base of operation against his remaining continental foe, Russia
3. France and Russia
-February 1807 Napoleon confronted the colossus of the east in the Battle of Eylau, the resulting carnage was horrifying but inconclusive
-The Battle of Friedland in June was a French victory that demoralized Russia’s Tsar Alexander I and persuaded him to negotiate
-Meeting at Tilsit, two rulers buried their differences and agreed, in effect, to partition Europe into eastern and western spheres of influence
-Treaty of Tilsit (Jul 1807) sanctioned new annexations of territory directly into France and the reorganization of other conquered countries
-Sister republics became kingdoms between 1805 and 1807
-His chief satellites included the Kingdom of Holland, with brother Louis on the throne, the Kingdom of Italy, with Napoleon himself as king and his stepson Eugene de Beauharnais a viceroy, the Confederation of the Rhine, including brother Jerome’s kingdom of Westphalia, the Kingdom of Naples, covering southern Italy, with brother Joseph as the ruler until Napoleon transferred him to Spain and installed his brother-in-law Muret, and the Duchy of Warsaw, Belgium, the Rhineland, Tuscany, Piedmont, Genoa, and the Illyrian provinces had been annexed to France
-Helvetica republic received a new constitution dictated by France
-1810—marriage arranged between the house of Bonaparte and house of Habsburg
-Napoleon married Marie Louise, daughter of Francis II, who bore him a male heir the following year
B. Naval War With Britain
-Napoleon hoped to destroy Britain’s influence by means of economic warfare
-Wanted to keep Britain from its markets, stop its exports, and thus ruin its trade and credit
-A result of this would be unemployment and labor unrest, which would turn British people against gov. and force the latter to make peace with France
1. Continental System
-Napoleon launched this to prohibit British trade with all French allies
-Britain responded in 1807 with the Orders in Council, which in effect reversed the blockade: It required all neutral ships to stop at British ports to procure trading licenses and pay tariffs
-British insisted on regulating all trade between neutral states and European ports
-Continental System did hurt British trade, France was affected too
-Satellite states were hurt the most
-Holland’s King Louis Bonaparte tolerated smuggling
-Napoleon ousted his brother from the throne and annexed the Kingdom of Holland directly to France
C. The Napoleonic Conscription Machine
-The National Convention’s mass levy of August 1793 had drafted all able-bodied unmarried men between the ages of 18 and 25
-When he war resumed in 1798, however, the Directory passed a conscription law that made successive “classes” of young men (that is, those born in a particular year) subject to a military draft should the need arise
1. The Rules of the Game
-Using parish birth registers, the mayor of every community compiled a list of men reaching the age of 19 that year
-These youths were then led by their mayor to the cantonal seat on a specified day for a draft lottery
-Panels of doctors at the department capitals later verified or rejected claims for medical exemptions
-Marriage could no longer be used as an exemption
-The wealthy could purchase a replacement, and the poor could flee
-Government permitted the hiring of a replacement under strict guidelines that made it difficult and expensive but not impossible
2. Draft Evasion
-If fleeing member’s families could not afford to feed the troops, then the community’s wealthy taxpayers were required to do so
-1810, Napoleon ordered the first of many “supplementary” levies, calling up men from earlier classes who had drawn higher lottery numbers
-In Jan. 1813, Napoleon replenished his armies by calling up the class of 1814 a year early and by making repeated supplementary calls on earlier classes
III. Resistance to Napoleon
-Napoleon’s intrusion into Italy, Germany, Spain, and Russia set in motion various responses and movements of resistance
-French expansion sparked new forms of nationalism in some quarters, but also liberalism and reaction
A. The Spanish Ulcer
-Spain and France shared a common interest in weakening British power in Europe and the colonial world
-Alliance they formed in 1795 brought only troubles for Spain
-Spain lost its Louisiana territory in America and most of its naval fleet
-Prime Minister Godoy was a corrupt opportunist and extremely unpopular with the people
-Crown Prince Ferdinand despised Godoy and Godoy’s protectors, the king and queen, while Ferdinand’s parents actively returned their son’s hostility
-At the zenith of his power, he concluded that he must reorganize Spain himself to bring it solidly into the Continental System
-He set in motion a plan to invade Portugal to partition it with Spain
-Napoleon intended to impose his own political solution to Spain’s instability
-The emperor then gathered a group of handpicked Spanish notables who followed Napoleon’s scenario by petitioning him to provide a new sovereign preferably his brother Joseph
-Joseph was duly proclaimed king of Spain
1. Popular Resistance
-Faced with military occupation, the disappearance of their royal family, and the crowning of a Frenchman, the Spanish people rose in rebellion
-May 2, 1808: angry crowd in Madrid rioted against French troops
-Bloody incident is known as Dos de Mayo (captured in Goya’s famous paintings)
-Local notables created committees, or juntas, to organize resistance and to ordinate campaigns by regular Spanish troops
-Landing an army in Portugal, the British bore the brunt of anti-French military operations in Spain
-In what they called the Peninsular War, a grueling war of attrition, their forces drove the French out of Portugal
-Pushed the French back across the Pyrenees in November, 1813
-British Commander: Duke of Wellington
-Spanish guerilla fighters helped wear down the French and forced the occupiers to struggle for survival
-Together, the Spanish regulars, the guerillas, and the British expeditionary force kept a massive French army of up to 300,000 men pinned down in Spain
-Napoleon referred to this war as the “Spanish Ulcer”
2. The Spanish Liberals
-War proved a disaster for Spanish liberals
-Torn between loyalties to Joseph, who would have liked to be a liberal ruler, and nationalist rebels, liberals face a dilemma
-Napoleon gave the orders in Spain and relied on his generals to implement them
-The liberals who joined the rebellion organized a provisional government by reviving the ancient Spanish parliament, or Cortes, in the southern town of Cadiz
-Cortes of Cadiz drafted a liberal constitution in 1812
-Most nationalist rebels despised the liberals: they were fighting for the Catholic Church, the Spanish monarchy, and the old way of life
-1814, Wellington drove the French out of Spain and former Crown Prince Ferdinand VII took the throne
-Royalist mob sacked the Cortes building; Ferdinand tore up the constitution of 1812, reinstated absolutism, restored the monasteries and the Inquisition, revived censorship, and arrested the leading liberals
-Nationalist victory
3. Independence in Spanish America
-The Creoles, descendents of Spanish settlers who were born in New World, also profited from the upheaval in Spain
-In 1807, a British force attacked Buenos Aires in Spain’s vice-royalty of the Rio de Plata
-Argentines were eager to trade their beef and hides for British goods, but Spain’s rigid mercantilism had always prevented such beneficial commerce
-With Spain unable to defend the, the Creoles organized their own militia and drove off the British, pushed aside the Spanish viceroy, and took power into their own hands
-After Ferdinand regained the Spanish throne 1814, he sent an army to reclaim the colony, but the Argentines, under General Jose de San Martin drove it off
-Rebellion spread throughout Spanish America, led above all by Simon Bolivar: “the liberator”
-Creoles in Spain’s vice-royalty of New Granada elected a congress, which declared independence from Spain
-1819, the Spanish conceded defeat
B. The Russian Debacle
-Russia now loomed as the main obstacle to Napoleon’s imperial reorganization and domination of Europe
-Russia resented the restrictions on its trade under the Continental System
-British diplomats, anti –Napoleonic exiles such as Baron Stein of Prussia, and nationalist reactionaries at court all pressured the tsar to resist Napoleon
-Hoped on the contrary that Alexander would maintain peace with France, but by 1812 their influence on the tsar had waned
-Napoleon’s objective was to annihilate Russia’s army or, at the least, to conquer Moscow and chase the army to the point of disarray
-To this end he marshaled a “Grand Army” and moved them steadily by forced marches across Central Europe in Russia
-Russians avoided the fight
-At Borodino the Russians finally made a stand and sustained many causalities but the remaining Russian troops managed to withdraw in order
-The greatly depleted ranks of the Grand Army staggered into Moscow on Sept. 14, 1812 but the Russian army was still intact and far from demoralized
1. The Destruction of the Grand Army
-Moscow was mysteriously set ablaze causing such extensive damage as to make it unfit to be the Grand Army’s winter quarters
-Only on Oct. 19 did Napoleon finally order a retreat, but the order came to late
-Napoleon’s poor planning, the harsh weather, and the operation of Russian guerilla bands made the long retreat a nightmare of suffering for the Grand Army
-Prussian contingent took the occasion to desert Napoleon, opening the possibility of mass defections and the formation of a new anti-Napoleonic coalition
C. German Resistance and the Last Coalition
-Other European statesmen were ready to capitalize on Napoleon’s defeat in Russia and demolish his empire once and for all
-Calls for a national uprising in various German states to throw off the tyrant’s yoke reinforced the efforts of diplomats like Prussia’s Baron Stein and Austria’s Klements von Metternich to revive the anti-Napoleonic coalition
1. Reform from Above in Prussia
-Prussian military reformers adopted new methods of recruitment to build up a trained reserve force that could be rapidly mobilized, along with a corps of reserve officer to take command of these units
-Prussia hoped to achieve French-style efficiency and military mobilization without resorting to new concepts of citizenship, constitutions, and legislatures, of the abolition of seignerualism
-March 1813, King Frederick William III of Prussia signed a treaty with Russia to form an offensive coalition against Napoleon
-Great struggle for Germany ensued between the Russo-Prussian forces and Napoleon and his allies
-Austria was neutral
-In August, Napoleon learned of new defeats in Spain, Habsburg Emperor Francis finally declared war on his son-in-law
-Southern German ally, Bavaria, changed sides
-A great battle raged around Leipzig for 3 days in Oct. and when the smoke cleared Napoleon was in full retreat
2. The Fall of Napoleon
-The coalition offered final terms to the emperor: he could retain his throne, but France would be reduced to her “normal frontiers”
-Napoleon chose to fight and was defeated in March 1814
-Napoleon was transported to the island of Elba, between Corsica and Italy, over which he was granted sovereignty
-22 years of exile, The Bourbon Dynasty returned to France
-Bonaparte’s strategy in 1800 called for a repeat of the 1797 campaign
-He would strike through Italy while the Army of the Rhine pushed eastward against Vienna
-Austria sued for peace
-The Treaty of Luneville (Feb. 1801) essentially restored France to the position it had held after Bonaparte’s triumphs in Italy in 1797
-The Treaty of Amiens (March 1802) ended hostilities and reshuffled territorial holdings outside Europe, such as the Cape Colony in South Africa, which passed from the Dutch to the British
-Did not settle for future of French influence in Europe or of commercial relations between the two great powers
-Treaty of Amiens failed to keep the peace because neither side was ready to abandon its century-long struggle for predominance
1. The Third Coalition
-The anti-France coalition’s objectives included the restoration of the Netherlands and Italy to “independence”, the limitation of French influence elsewhere, and if possible, a reduction of France to its pre-Revolutionary borders
-At the Battle of Trafalgar (Oct 1805), Admiral Nelson’s fleet crushed the combined naval forces of France and its ally Spain
-Occupying Vienna he proceeded against the coalition’s main army in December
-At the Battle of Austerlitz, he drew his numerically superior opponents into an exposed position and crushed the center of their lines
-Forced Habsburgs to the peace table
-Treaty of Pressburg (Dec. 1805), extremely harsh and humiliating for Austria, imposed a large indemnity and required Habsburgs to cede their Venetian provinces
2. France and Germany
-Napoleon reorganized Germany into the Confederation of the Rhine
-Prussia remained neutral for a while
-Prussia vs. France in the battle of Jena (oct 1806)
-Collapse of Prussian military power
-End of Holy Roman Empire in 1806, Napoleon liquidated numerous small German states and merged them into two new ones: the Kingdom of Westphalia, with his brother Jerome on the throne, and the Grand Duchy of Berg, to be ruled by his brother-in-law Joachim Murat
-“Restoration of Poland” had propaganda value
-Napoleon could now enlist a Polish army and use Polish territory as a base of operation against his remaining continental foe, Russia
3. France and Russia
-February 1807 Napoleon confronted the colossus of the east in the Battle of Eylau, the resulting carnage was horrifying but inconclusive
-The Battle of Friedland in June was a French victory that demoralized Russia’s Tsar Alexander I and persuaded him to negotiate
-Meeting at Tilsit, two rulers buried their differences and agreed, in effect, to partition Europe into eastern and western spheres of influence
-Treaty of Tilsit (Jul 1807) sanctioned new annexations of territory directly into France and the reorganization of other conquered countries
-Sister republics became kingdoms between 1805 and 1807
-His chief satellites included the Kingdom of Holland, with brother Louis on the throne, the Kingdom of Italy, with Napoleon himself as king and his stepson Eugene de Beauharnais a viceroy, the Confederation of the Rhine, including brother Jerome’s kingdom of Westphalia, the Kingdom of Naples, covering southern Italy, with brother Joseph as the ruler until Napoleon transferred him to Spain and installed his brother-in-law Muret, and the Duchy of Warsaw, Belgium, the Rhineland, Tuscany, Piedmont, Genoa, and the Illyrian provinces had been annexed to France
-Helvetica republic received a new constitution dictated by France
-1810—marriage arranged between the house of Bonaparte and house of Habsburg
-Napoleon married Marie Louise, daughter of Francis II, who bore him a male heir the following year
B. Naval War With Britain
-Napoleon hoped to destroy Britain’s influence by means of economic warfare
-Wanted to keep Britain from its markets, stop its exports, and thus ruin its trade and credit
-A result of this would be unemployment and labor unrest, which would turn British people against gov. and force the latter to make peace with France
1. Continental System
-Napoleon launched this to prohibit British trade with all French allies
-Britain responded in 1807 with the Orders in Council, which in effect reversed the blockade: It required all neutral ships to stop at British ports to procure trading licenses and pay tariffs
-British insisted on regulating all trade between neutral states and European ports
-Continental System did hurt British trade, France was affected too
-Satellite states were hurt the most
-Holland’s King Louis Bonaparte tolerated smuggling
-Napoleon ousted his brother from the throne and annexed the Kingdom of Holland directly to France
C. The Napoleonic Conscription Machine
-The National Convention’s mass levy of August 1793 had drafted all able-bodied unmarried men between the ages of 18 and 25
-When he war resumed in 1798, however, the Directory passed a conscription law that made successive “classes” of young men (that is, those born in a particular year) subject to a military draft should the need arise
1. The Rules of the Game
-Using parish birth registers, the mayor of every community compiled a list of men reaching the age of 19 that year
-These youths were then led by their mayor to the cantonal seat on a specified day for a draft lottery
-Panels of doctors at the department capitals later verified or rejected claims for medical exemptions
-Marriage could no longer be used as an exemption
-The wealthy could purchase a replacement, and the poor could flee
-Government permitted the hiring of a replacement under strict guidelines that made it difficult and expensive but not impossible
2. Draft Evasion
-If fleeing member’s families could not afford to feed the troops, then the community’s wealthy taxpayers were required to do so
-1810, Napoleon ordered the first of many “supplementary” levies, calling up men from earlier classes who had drawn higher lottery numbers
-In Jan. 1813, Napoleon replenished his armies by calling up the class of 1814 a year early and by making repeated supplementary calls on earlier classes
III. Resistance to Napoleon
-Napoleon’s intrusion into Italy, Germany, Spain, and Russia set in motion various responses and movements of resistance
-French expansion sparked new forms of nationalism in some quarters, but also liberalism and reaction
A. The Spanish Ulcer
-Spain and France shared a common interest in weakening British power in Europe and the colonial world
-Alliance they formed in 1795 brought only troubles for Spain
-Spain lost its Louisiana territory in America and most of its naval fleet
-Prime Minister Godoy was a corrupt opportunist and extremely unpopular with the people
-Crown Prince Ferdinand despised Godoy and Godoy’s protectors, the king and queen, while Ferdinand’s parents actively returned their son’s hostility
-At the zenith of his power, he concluded that he must reorganize Spain himself to bring it solidly into the Continental System
-He set in motion a plan to invade Portugal to partition it with Spain
-Napoleon intended to impose his own political solution to Spain’s instability
-The emperor then gathered a group of handpicked Spanish notables who followed Napoleon’s scenario by petitioning him to provide a new sovereign preferably his brother Joseph
-Joseph was duly proclaimed king of Spain
1. Popular Resistance
-Faced with military occupation, the disappearance of their royal family, and the crowning of a Frenchman, the Spanish people rose in rebellion
-May 2, 1808: angry crowd in Madrid rioted against French troops
-Bloody incident is known as Dos de Mayo (captured in Goya’s famous paintings)
-Local notables created committees, or juntas, to organize resistance and to ordinate campaigns by regular Spanish troops
-Landing an army in Portugal, the British bore the brunt of anti-French military operations in Spain
-In what they called the Peninsular War, a grueling war of attrition, their forces drove the French out of Portugal
-Pushed the French back across the Pyrenees in November, 1813
-British Commander: Duke of Wellington
-Spanish guerilla fighters helped wear down the French and forced the occupiers to struggle for survival
-Together, the Spanish regulars, the guerillas, and the British expeditionary force kept a massive French army of up to 300,000 men pinned down in Spain
-Napoleon referred to this war as the “Spanish Ulcer”
2. The Spanish Liberals
-War proved a disaster for Spanish liberals
-Torn between loyalties to Joseph, who would have liked to be a liberal ruler, and nationalist rebels, liberals face a dilemma
-Napoleon gave the orders in Spain and relied on his generals to implement them
-The liberals who joined the rebellion organized a provisional government by reviving the ancient Spanish parliament, or Cortes, in the southern town of Cadiz
-Cortes of Cadiz drafted a liberal constitution in 1812
-Most nationalist rebels despised the liberals: they were fighting for the Catholic Church, the Spanish monarchy, and the old way of life
-1814, Wellington drove the French out of Spain and former Crown Prince Ferdinand VII took the throne
-Royalist mob sacked the Cortes building; Ferdinand tore up the constitution of 1812, reinstated absolutism, restored the monasteries and the Inquisition, revived censorship, and arrested the leading liberals
-Nationalist victory
3. Independence in Spanish America
-The Creoles, descendents of Spanish settlers who were born in New World, also profited from the upheaval in Spain
-In 1807, a British force attacked Buenos Aires in Spain’s vice-royalty of the Rio de Plata
-Argentines were eager to trade their beef and hides for British goods, but Spain’s rigid mercantilism had always prevented such beneficial commerce
-With Spain unable to defend the, the Creoles organized their own militia and drove off the British, pushed aside the Spanish viceroy, and took power into their own hands
-After Ferdinand regained the Spanish throne 1814, he sent an army to reclaim the colony, but the Argentines, under General Jose de San Martin drove it off
-Rebellion spread throughout Spanish America, led above all by Simon Bolivar: “the liberator”
-Creoles in Spain’s vice-royalty of New Granada elected a congress, which declared independence from Spain
-1819, the Spanish conceded defeat
B. The Russian Debacle
-Russia now loomed as the main obstacle to Napoleon’s imperial reorganization and domination of Europe
-Russia resented the restrictions on its trade under the Continental System
-British diplomats, anti –Napoleonic exiles such as Baron Stein of Prussia, and nationalist reactionaries at court all pressured the tsar to resist Napoleon
-Hoped on the contrary that Alexander would maintain peace with France, but by 1812 their influence on the tsar had waned
-Napoleon’s objective was to annihilate Russia’s army or, at the least, to conquer Moscow and chase the army to the point of disarray
-To this end he marshaled a “Grand Army” and moved them steadily by forced marches across Central Europe in Russia
-Russians avoided the fight
-At Borodino the Russians finally made a stand and sustained many causalities but the remaining Russian troops managed to withdraw in order
-The greatly depleted ranks of the Grand Army staggered into Moscow on Sept. 14, 1812 but the Russian army was still intact and far from demoralized
1. The Destruction of the Grand Army
-Moscow was mysteriously set ablaze causing such extensive damage as to make it unfit to be the Grand Army’s winter quarters
-Only on Oct. 19 did Napoleon finally order a retreat, but the order came to late
-Napoleon’s poor planning, the harsh weather, and the operation of Russian guerilla bands made the long retreat a nightmare of suffering for the Grand Army
-Prussian contingent took the occasion to desert Napoleon, opening the possibility of mass defections and the formation of a new anti-Napoleonic coalition
C. German Resistance and the Last Coalition
-Other European statesmen were ready to capitalize on Napoleon’s defeat in Russia and demolish his empire once and for all
-Calls for a national uprising in various German states to throw off the tyrant’s yoke reinforced the efforts of diplomats like Prussia’s Baron Stein and Austria’s Klements von Metternich to revive the anti-Napoleonic coalition
1. Reform from Above in Prussia
-Prussian military reformers adopted new methods of recruitment to build up a trained reserve force that could be rapidly mobilized, along with a corps of reserve officer to take command of these units
-Prussia hoped to achieve French-style efficiency and military mobilization without resorting to new concepts of citizenship, constitutions, and legislatures, of the abolition of seignerualism
-March 1813, King Frederick William III of Prussia signed a treaty with Russia to form an offensive coalition against Napoleon
-Great struggle for Germany ensued between the Russo-Prussian forces and Napoleon and his allies
-Austria was neutral
-In August, Napoleon learned of new defeats in Spain, Habsburg Emperor Francis finally declared war on his son-in-law
-Southern German ally, Bavaria, changed sides
-A great battle raged around Leipzig for 3 days in Oct. and when the smoke cleared Napoleon was in full retreat
2. The Fall of Napoleon
-The coalition offered final terms to the emperor: he could retain his throne, but France would be reduced to her “normal frontiers”
-Napoleon chose to fight and was defeated in March 1814
-Napoleon was transported to the island of Elba, between Corsica and Italy, over which he was granted sovereignty
-22 years of exile, The Bourbon Dynasty returned to France